


Mercy

by Florayna, Multikicker, Tripower



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Gore, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 01:42:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13694253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florayna/pseuds/Florayna, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multikicker/pseuds/Multikicker, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tripower/pseuds/Tripower
Summary: Written as a backstory for Lena in 'La voix d'un ange'!Note: Steampunkish elements in this AU. So some technology is a bit advanced for the time period. That being, the late 1800's.Joint creation by Fallowfield, Tripower, Multikicker and myself! Be sure to give their stuff a look once you're finished here!





	Mercy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fallowfield](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallowfield/gifts).



Nobody makes a decision expecting to die.

 

Sure, Lena had acknowledged the risks when she accepted the mission. It wasn’t all that different to her decision to join the RAF. Death could lurk around every corner, be it a technical malfunction in the aircraft or at the hands of the enemy. But she was skilled and daring and brave so the mere _possibility_ of dying hadn’t given her pause. And so the mission, as risky as it was to fly over the no man’s land between two faction’s front lines, didn’t faze her at all. She was one of the best pilots in this damned war, and if anyone could pull it off, it was her.

 

Her and her co-pilot, Mason Blackburn.

 

They’d made quite the reputation for themselves, the Flying Fools. Always a cheeky remark and daring maneuver ready to save the day. So terribly alike they were, that it was no surprise the pair worked terrifyingly well together.

 

But all pilots make mistakes.

 

It was bound to happen, a high stress scenario in pitch black darkness, the enemy artillery firing tirelessly beneath them. Lena had been distracted by her co-pilot, while he leaned out the side of their aircraft, snapping pictures of the hostile lines below with a night vision lense. Despite the importance of their mission he looked back at Lena, getting a quick shot of her as well. ‘For posterity’, Mason had said. Although he spoke almost too quietly to be heard over the wind rushing past her ears, Lena managed to catch his words, and oh she couldn’t resist the laughter that bubbled in her throat. The pilot could imagine no other friend she’d rather tempt death alongside.

 

She only realized she’d flown too low when the sky lit up around her. On one hand… it was beautiful, like dozens of little tears in reality. This is how Lena would imagine stars to look like, when she was young and dreamt of flying among them someday. On the other, there was fear, and each of these explosive rounds just fed the intensity of the ringing in her ears. When the engine was hit by the anti-air fire, acrid smoke drowned her vision and lungs as the pilot tried in vain to do something- anything, with controls that suddenly wouldn’t heed her commands.

 

This is when she thinks he started screaming.

 

During the fall Lena couldn’t hear anything. Compliments of the explosions that temporarily deafened the Brit, and yet it felt like her senses had already given up on life. Like she was already dead. Her eyes closed, tears pickling at the corners of her eyes.

 

 

 

 

When she opened them again, the first thing she saw was the floor of her cockpit. Or rather, the lack thereof, as her feet dangled in the air. She registered, water. Drenched. The relentless impact of thick droplets. Then there was sound. Raw, desperate screams.

 

When her mind recovered just enough to recognize those screams as Mason’s, Lena moved out of instinct. Her hands were clumsy, and her footsteps heavy yet unsure, but she managed to make her way to him. To use what little remained of their left wing to get to his side. She didn’t see why he was so in pain at first. His arms were fine, still clutching the camera tightly, and there was scarcely a mark on him besides dirt from the crash. But still, his head was tilted back, twisted in agony as he continued to cry out, oblivious to the world around him.

 

That is when she looked down. And even then, at the first glance, Lena knew the sight would haunt her.

 

She all but fell to the ground, hands and knees sinking into the mud while Lena wretched and heaved. His legs were- the flesh was all but skinned from bone in some areas, the interior near them painted by red and stringy sinew, skin and meat pulled aside like flower petals, all the way to the pale white core. The blood mixed with rain had been dripping down the tips of his boots, pooling on the ground beneath. Shrapnel was lodged in his skin- what was left of his skin. No doubt from an engine explosion.

 

It was the distant noise of men yelling in a foreign language that prompted Lena to move again, to wipe the spittle away with a muddy sleeve and return to Mason. She couldn’t save him, not in that state… but Lena wouldn’t just leave him here in pain, cold and alone. To bleed out as if he was forgotten. As if she’d abandon him so easily.

 

It was mercy.

 

It was murder, but it was mercy.

 

The knife went in more easily that Lena expected. Glided so smoothly… she felt compelled to hold on, some part of her afraid blade would slip away if her hands did. She couldn’t look at his face- only the hilt, held so firmly to Mason’s chest. Lena only noticed she was shivering when the blood started to flow onto her fingers, so warm, so comforting against the chill of the rain and wind and darkness. This was the right thing to do. It would feel more wrong if it wasn’t. She’d have hesitated if it wasn’t.

 

She didn’t wait for the blood to stop flowing… just long enough to feel Mason go limp.

 

Lena took her knife.

 

Lena took the camera.

 

Lena took off into the night, away from the smouldering wreck and lifeless corpse within.

 

 

 

 

It’s dawn when Lena Oxton finally stumbles back into the friendly trenches.

 

The camera falls from her hands almost immediately. It’s too heavy. Everything is. Her head, her hands, the bloodstained knife in her belt. Her clothes too, soaked and dripping still. Other soldiers quickly herd the pilot towards the nearest fire, they pile warm blankets around her shoulders, over her lap. Someone leaves to find a medic, while Lena traces the bloodstained rim of her sleeve.

 

The fire helps, the shivers cease. The medic helps, patching up wounds from the crash Lena didn’t realize she had. But the questions don’t help. _Can you remember the crash? How were you spotted? Where’s Blackburn? Where’s Mason?_  She stutters through her answers, pace of her words irregular, so unlike how easily the steel slipped past skin and flesh and-

 

And the stutter never leaves.

 

**Author's Note:**

> https://archiveofourown.org/works/13476156/chapters/30897504
> 
> ^^^ Link to the main fic in this universe! ^^^


End file.
